n reading old poetry to myself I tend to voice the ‘-th’ at the end of words as in ‘this.’ I find it establishes a pleasing sense of continuity between modern and archaic plurals.

On that note, I came across an interesting quotation this morning–apparently we mispronounce old poetry!

A.C. Baugh points out (A History of the English Language) that Shakespeare used both the -eth and -s forms for third-person verbs, as in this passage from A Merchant of Venice (c. 1597):

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as a gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:…

Baugh quotes Richard Hodges’s A Special Help to Orthographie (1643) in which the writer notes the disconnect between how verbs are written and how they are pronounced in ordinary speech:

Howsoever wee use to Write thus, leadeth it, maketh it, noteth it, raketh it, per-fumeth it, etc. Yet in our ordinary speech (which is best to bee understood) wee say, leads it, makes it, notes it, rakes it, per-fumes it.